When does a language die?

Question

When does a programming language die?

Does it kick the bucket when all the authors of the language cark it?

Answer 1

With spoken languages, there are a couple definitions: (1) when no one speaks the language, or (2) when no one uses the language as their primary language. You could apply the same criteria to programming languages.

Answer 2

That depends on your definition of "dead":

• when it doesn't change/improve anymore
• when no one is using it anymore
• when no one is left who can read it
• when the last document written in that language is gone (otherwise, someone might learn the language from it)

Answer 3

When nobody uses it. Or you think the people that started the English language are still around? :)

Answer 4

Programming languages can never truly die as long as the compilers and the computers that the programs run on are still in use.

In practice, a programming language starts to die when the authors stop maintaining it, and are effectively dead when people stop writing new programs. It doesn't matter if old programs are still running, since the source code isn't needed to run the programs.

Answer 5

Programming language dies, when there are no tools (compilers, libraries) that work on relatively modern platforms. Then nobody can use the language except on vintage platforms.

"When nobody uses it" is not that good definition - how can you know that nobody uses it? You can't.

Answer 6

We like to think that a language is dead when it quits being maintained. However, the reality is that a language dies when there is no software left that is written in it. As long as that software is still around, somebody will have to maintain it at some point. I'm not 100% sure on this, but I'd guess that there are few if any languages that have died by this definition.

Answer 7

According to my Latin teacher: Never. ;-)

Answer 8

A programming language isn't dead until both the authors stop maintaining it, and the community has moved on to other tools. For example, Microsoft has declared VB6 to be dead, but there are still many active implementations using VB6.

Answer 9

IMO, in the context of computer languages, a language is truly dead when there are no more problems that someone says "This would be straightforward to solve in "

There are lots of reasons why it is no longer straightforward to use a language:

• no one knows the syntax any more
• the compilers aren't available for the machines you have available
• the compilers don't create object/executable files for the target machine

There are probably others, but those are the ones that spring to mind.

When exactly this occurs is hard to know, but it has happened before, and it will happen again.

Answer 10

Two conditions I'd say:

• No one is choosing that language for new projects.
• There are no plans to update / improve the language.

If both of these are true, then the number of projects that use the language can only go down until it reaches zero.

Whereas if people are still using it to solve new problems, there might be an incentive to improve it at some point. And if someone is still working to improve it, then people might start using it again.

Answer 11

旧语言永远不会消亡，它们只会消失 ......